1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a holding apparatus, and in particular to an apparatus for chucking an electronic part for the purpose of mounting the same on a substrate such as a printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An important problem in the electronic circuit assembling art relates to the need for apparatus for chucking an electronic part which can reliably accommodate any electronic parts having different shapes and sizes and which can efficiently perform the mounting of electronic parts at high speed. While various types of holding apparatus have been developed hitherto, they could be not necessarily designed to sufficiently meet the requirements.
FIGS. 14 through 18 are illustrations of one example of conventional apparatus for holding an electronic part. Of these, FIG. 14 is a plan view showing the conventional holding apparatus and FIG. 15 is a sectional view taken along line C--C of FIG. 14. The conventional holding apparatus is arranged to chuck an electronic part 6 absorbed by an absorbing device 4. The holding apparatus comprises a pair of chucking jaws 32 and a pair of levers 5 each being connected to each of the chucking jaws 32. The levers 5 are respectively pivotably supported by a pair of pins 2 at one end portions thereof which are opposite to the end portions where the chucking jaws 32 are connected. The levers 5 are biased by a spring 1 to be closed, that is, to grip the electronic part 6 and are opened or closed in response to the vertical movement of a roller 3 which is coupled to the aborbing device 4.
Although satisfactory when chucking a small-size electronic part 6 as shown in FIG. 16, such an arrangement provides difficulty due to the variations of chucking position caused by the swinging movement of the levers 5 when gripping a large-size electronic part 7 and an electronic part 8 having a specific configuration as shown in FIGS. 17 and 18. Therefore, for accurately chucking these electronic parts, it will be required to exchange the chucking jaws 32 to the size and configuration of the electronic part to be held thereby.